The disclosure of Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-101956 filed on Mar. 30, 2001 including the specification, drawings and abstract is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a method, and a program for drivingly controlling hybrid vehicles.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional navigation system is designed to detect a current position of a vehicle, by means of a current position detection means, detect an azimuth of a driver""s vehicle, by means of an azimuth detection means, and display the detected current position, the detected azimuth of the driver""s vehicle, and a map of the surrounding area on a map screen set on a display. In the case where the navigation system is employed as a route search system, if an operator such as a driver inputs a destination, the navigation system searches for a route from a current position to the destination and displays the current position, an azimuth of a driver""s vehicle, a map of the surrounding area, and a found route (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cthe found routexe2x80x9d) on the map screen. Accordingly, the driver can drive the vehicle while following the found route.
There has also been provided a vehicle control apparatus that is designed to transmit information regarding navigation from a navigation system to an automatic-transmission control unit and perform running control such as corner control on the basis of the information regarding navigation. When the vehicle is about to negotiate a corner, the vehicle control apparatus operates such that the navigation system sets recommended speed-change stages on the basis of road conditions and that the automatic-transmission control unit selects a certain one of the recommended speed-change stages. As a result, the vehicle can negotiate the corner with the selected speed-change stage.
In the aforementioned vehicle control apparatus according to the related art, however, while information regarding navigation is generated for each of different road conditions, two or three speed-change stages are set. Therefore, the vehicle cannot always negotiate a corner while being decelerated at a suitable deceleration. As a result, driving comfort deteriorates during corner control.
The present invention has been made to provide a solution to the aforementioned problem of the vehicle control apparatus according to the related art. It is an objective of the present invention to provide an apparatus, a method, and a program for drivingly controlling hybrid vehicles with improved driving comfort during running control.